


I've Just Seen a Face

by 221Btls



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bickering, But Mary did, Clever John, Declaration of Love, Fluff, Grumpy John, M/M, Pining John, Rosie doesn't exist, Sherlock goes from 0 to 60, Sherlock smells nice, red balloon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9239360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221Btls/pseuds/221Btls
Summary: The red balloon that substituted for John reappears unexpectedly.





	

“John! I’ve got it!” Sherlock slapped the table, his fork clattering as it jumped.

   “Good on you.” Used to the almost daily outbursts, occurring as if a powerful spotlight had flipped on in Sherlock’s brain, John finished sipping his tea and set the cup down.

   “Go to the store. Get me these.”  

   “Nope.” John leisurely turned the page of his newspaper, brushing away the note waggling in front of his nose.

   “But, John.”

   “No, Sherlock.”

   Hearing Sherlock root through the box of odds and ends on the table—a bee corpse, an owl talon, a cigar stub that Sherlock had discovered in a nineteenth century coffin, and whatever other small objects Sherlock deemed too “valuable” to dispose of—John was surprised that Sherlock actually found something useful. A paperclip. Used to attach the note directly over the article John was absorbed in.

   “I was reading that,” John protested, his attention wandering to the note against his will. And better judgement. It was a list of items Sherlock apparently wanted him to retrieve, and by the looks of it, John wouldn’t be finding them at the shop around the corner. “Chicken feet? Cow tongues? Eye of newt?! Have you branched into witchcraft?”

   “No time, John,” Sherlock said, grabbing a grumbling John by his shoulders and all but pushing him out of his chair and toward the door. “Here’s my card and your jacket. I’ll text you the address and Tube route for a little bodega that’ll have everything I need. Now, off you pop.”

   With the help of a firm push between his shoulder blades, John stumbled over the threshold of the flat.

   “Sherlock, what the—” But the door that slammed in his face was indifferent to what he had been going to say, and John stomped down the stairs, grousing. Thinking about the many ways in which he would like to murder Sherlock.

   _There’s a quiet Sunday morning ruined._  

~*~

Three and a half hours, a foul mood, and the beginnings of a headache later, John opened the door to the flat. The flat filled with a ridiculous number of red balloons, most with their strings weighted to the floor. _Christ. What’s he up to now?_

   “Sherlock!” John shouted, not caring who in the building heard him.

   “Shut the door, John,” Sherlock called from his bedroom. “You’ll let them out.”

   Too late. Some of the balloons had already made their getaway, and John watched them waft away, unwilling to risk killing himself trying to grab them as they floated high above the stairs.

   Batting balloons from his face (why did they have to be eye level?!), John took the grocery totes to the kitchen and dropped them on the counter with a thud. Who knew cow tongues were so heavy?

   “What do you want in the fridge?” Christ, his head hurt.

  “No need. It was purely a diversionary tactic. I needed to think.”

   John startled at the deep voice behind him; he hadn’t heard Sherlock come into the kitchen.

   “You mean you sent me clear across the city…” Rounding on Sherlock, John’s mouth went dry.  

   The midnight blue suit (new), pale blue shirt (freshly pressed), and color-coordinated knit tie (tie?!) made Sherlock’s eyes almost painfully vivid, and John tried not to stare. He’d known they were blue, and a beguiling shade at that, but Jesus.

   Reluctantly tearing his gaze away, John had the misfortune of then settling it on Sherlock’s hair, the unusually tidy curls burnished to a luster, and it was all John could do to keep from reaching out and touching it. To see if it were as soft and silky as it looked.

  The edges of John’s vision went fuzzy, and he drew a deep breath; his headache must be worse than he thought. But that was the wrong thing to do; when he inhaled, he caught the scent of cologne, Tom Ford, to be exact. _Sherlock’s wearing cologne. I must have fallen into some kind of twilight zone._

   “You all right, John?” Sherlock peered down at him, examining him as if he were a piece of evidence under a microscope.

   John blinked. “Uh, yeah. Just a touch of a headache. City fumes, you know. I think I’ll lie down for a bit.” ~~~~

   But he didn’t make it out of the kitchen before Sherlock had taken him by the shoulders and was guiding him, with hands much gentler, so much gentler than in the morning, through the ( _bloody)_ balloons and toward his chair.

   “Let me take your jacket,” Sherlock said, his voice low and soothing in John’s ear. _Did I just call Sherlock soothing_? “I’ll get you some tea; kettle’s already on. And then I’ll give you a head massage. That’ll help fix you up.”

   Too stunned to resist, John let Sherlock slip off his jacket. Let Sherlock adjust the pillow behind his back. Let Sherlock hand him the newspaper he’d started earlier “in case you want to finish that article I so rudely interrupted this morning,” before Sherlock walked away.

    The balloons. The new clothes. The cologne. What the _fuck_ was going on? Not to mention Nice Sherlock. As wide a vocabulary as Sherlock possessed, John would have no difficulty believing that the word “solicitous” was not anywhere in it.

   John twisted around in his chair, bobbing his head to catch glimpses of Sherlock between the balloons. Sherlock practically glided through the kitchen, taking tea and a cup from the cupboard, fetching milk from the fridge, pouring boiled water. And as he did, he whistled. Not one of his classical pieces, but, from what John could make out, a pop tune. A romantic ballad.

  John turned, sitting straight in his chair and puzzling over Sherlock’s strange behavior. Puzzling over of the balloons that swayed with the air current in the room.

   “I hope it’s not too hot; I cooled it, so you don’t burn yourself.” Sherlock smiled as he handed John the cup, but it wasn’t a fake smile, the kind that stretched Sherlock’s entire face without him really changing expressions. No, this one was soft about his mouth, shy almost, and the crinkles around shining eyes told John that  _this_ smile was real.

   John set the tea on the table beside him hard enough that the cup and saucer clanked together and the tea sloshed over the edge, and, with a determined move, he slotted his fingers together and forced his clasped hands to stay in his lap.

   “Okay, what’s up? What are you doing?” John asked, glaring at Sherlock.

   Sherlock’s smile wilted. “What do you mean? All I did was make you tea.”

   “Exactly. _You_ don’t make people bloody tea. _You_ don’t offer massages. And what about the balloons? Eh?” John couldn’t stand it any longer; he stabbed his finger at the air in front of Sherlock. “What you’re wearing, the clothes and the bloody cologne, walking around like a—like a model? What’s all _that_ about?”

   “You don’t like it? It’s new.” Sherlock tugged at the hem of his jacket.

   “Yes, I _know_ it’s new. And the tie. You don’t _wear_ ties, by the way. Or cologne. So what’s up, Sherlock? You’ve been acting weird all day. What’s it have to do with the balloons? You having a party I don’t know about. A party for two?”

   _Oh._

   When it dawned on John that his mouth had frozen into an _O_ , he clamped it shut and dropped his hand on the chair arm.

   “Right, then. I think I’ll take that nap, after all. Let me know what time you want me out of the flat.” Careful to avoid looking at Sherlock, John got up and hurried to his bedroom. He needed to escape; suddenly, it was more than his head that hurt. He’d tried to prepare himself for this day, the day Sherlock might bring someone home, but he’d never thought it would cause him actual physical pain.

   Lying on his bed, as he stared at the ceiling and tried to quell the feeling that he would be sick at any moment, his phone pinged. Sherlock. Who else would text him? It pinged again. With an exasperated sigh, knowing Sherlock wouldn’t let up until he got he got a response, John picked up his phone.

   **May I come up? SH**

**Please. SH**

Another text came through.

**I need to talk to you. SH**

John laughed, a derisive sound that echoed his darkening mood; on top of everything else, Sherlock was using words like “please” and “need.” And for once, Sherlock had asked to come up. Always before, if John were lucky, there’d be a quick rap at the door before it flew open. Which all meant, whoever it was Sherlock was meeting must be special, at least special enough to reveal a Sherlock John had never met.

   **Do what you want** , John texted. _You always do._

No sooner had John sent the text when he heard Sherlock’s feet pounding up the stairs. Two at a time. _Wonder what his big hurry is? He must want me to out right away so he can get on with his life. Without me._

   The door squeaked open, and Sherlock took an uncertain step into the room. “John?”

   “Say whatever it is you have to say, Sherlock.” John refused to do it for him; he’d make Sherlock tell him that he’d fallen in love. Or whatever emotion it was that passed for love in Sherlock’s heart.  

    Sherlock’s brow pinched at the sharpness in John’s tone. “I can see I’m doing this badly.”

   He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small stack of index cards. “These are prepared words,” Sherlock read, shaking his head and glancing at John. “Sorry. Wrong card. That was from…well, you know.”

   Hunching over the cards, Sherlock shuffled through them, muttering. “Big squishy cuddles from Stella and Ted. Hmmm, no. Mary, lots of love. No.”

   “Ahh, here we are; I found it, John.” Sherlock straightened to his full height and, reading from the card, pronounced, “You are the one.” Dropping his hand to his side, he said, “I don’t know how this card got mixed in with the others. But that’s what I wanted to say. You are the one, John.”

   _What the f—_

   “I’m the one what?”

   “The _one_. _The_ one _,_ John. I don’t know how you’re not getting this.”

   “I’m the one. Ok. Right, fine.” John shook his head. “No. Nope, not getting it.”

   “I was prepared for that possibility.” Like an excited child, Sherlock rushed to the door, reached around the corner, and rushed back, coming to an abrupt stop at the side of the bed. In his hands was a shadow box, its contents facing John.

   Seeing the neatly mounted red balloon with the caricature of his own face (comically shriveled, and stained with whatever questionable trash that had followed it into the bin), John’s mouth parted in bewilderment. Sherlock had found it and kept it. “But that was over a year ago. Why do you still have it?”

   “May I?” Sherlock gestured for John to scoot over, and when John shifted his legs to make room, Sherlock unbuttoned his jacket and sat down on the edge of the bed, a tenderness on his face John didn’t think he’d seen before.

   “You still have it so you can remember what I look like?” John joked feebly, attempting to defuse the weird tension in the air; well, at least he was tense. Or was it confused? Yeah, that.

   “The niceties of society have always been difficult for me, John, uttering vacuous words that people seem to find so important. ‘Please,’ ‘thank you, ‘isn’t it a fine day, Bob.’ Why should I waste my time coming up with such drivel, such noise, when my brain could be put to much better use?”

   “I’ve never asked you to be someone you weren’t.”

   “No, you haven’t, but you obviously don’t understand your value to me. I love you, John. That’s what I’ve always wanted to—”

   The room closed in on John and, for a moment, things went dark, his mind overwhelmed from hearing Sherlock say the three words that he’d long ago given up hope on hearing.

   “—until I was gone those two years. And when I came home, many, many times I wanted to tell you, but I was fearful, John. Yes, me; don’t look at me like that. I was afraid that if I started, I’d never stop, so I—”

_That’s what the clothes are about. And the cologne. Still don’t know about the balloons…but… They’re for me. He’s wooing me._

    “—think I could ever be unaware of that fact then you’re a far bigger idiot than I ever thought—but to remind me that you need to know just how very aware I am. How very important—”

_No, not wooing. Proposing. “You’re the one.” Dear fucking Christ. Sherlock Holmes is proposing. To me._ _Maybe not marriage, but something permanent._  

   “—by that time you were with Mary, and I thought it wouldn’t matter anymore, not to you, anyway. And when Mary passed—”

_But…but we haven’t even been on a date._ _It’s been one long date, though, hasn’t it._

“—it occurred to me today that it’s time to take the bull by the horns, as it were. Bull by the horns? Whoever devised that inane phrase must have—”

_What better way to get to know someone than to live with them? Is there anything more I need to know about Sherlock that—_   

   “John! Are you listening to me?”

   The indignation on Sherlock’s face made John laugh.

   “What I was saying was, I don’t know what to do next, but if you think it’s something to laugh about…”

    “No, not funny, not at all, Sherlock,” John said, trying valiantly to suppress his giggle given the stern look Sherlock wore. And couldn’t hold, because he, too, broke into a laugh.

   _It’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it? Where one of us goes, the other follows. God willing, that’s how it’ll always be._

John sat up beside Sherlock, turning to him. “I know what you do next. You kiss me.”

   “Why didn’t I think of that?”

   “Because you’re an idiot.”

   “Obviously not that much of an idiot if I love you.”

   Almost reverently, Sherlock cupped John’s face, molding his long, graceful hands to its contours. Pressed his lips lightly to the side of John’s mouth, with the flicks of his tongue teasing John with the promise of more, only to shift to the other side.

   “Tart,” John whispered _._

   Sherlock’s breath warmed John’s skin as he took his exquisite time exploring. As his mouth, that lush, lush mouth, kissed John’s eyelids, his ear, his jaw. As his hands caressed John, one at the back of his head, sifting through the short strands of his hair; the other at his neck, Sherlock’s thumb stroking the soft skin below his ear, until Sherlock’s mouth found that spot, too.

    John wanted to fight his helplessness under the assault to his senses. Wanted to, as he had craved so many times over the years, take Sherlock in his arms and kiss him, make love to him, until neither one of them could breathe. But John could barely think. He had always loved Sherlock but never once had he truly believed that Sherlock would love him. Not like this.

   And then it stopped. Sherlock had pulled away.

   Groaning, John opened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

   “You don’t like my cologne.” It was a declaration, not a question.

   _Where the fuck did that come from?_

“You have a headache. Olfactory glands are hyper-sensitive when one is in pain, causing said pain to become acute, and, in your case, causing you to be unresponsive. Simple deduction.”

   “No, my headache is…” _Think about this Watson; you aren’t about to convince Sherlock your headache’s gone. He’s like a terrier; once he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t let go until it’s HIS idea._ “I didn’t want to say anything. Why don’t you go take a shower, wash the cologne off? Besides, I'd rather smell _you_.”    

   For a brief moment, Sherlock looked uncertain, and then the side of his mouth quirked up. “Join me?”

   Without missing a beat, John bounded off the bed, his heart pounding. And with a self-satisfied smile, he thought, _John Watson, Detective Whisperer._

**Author's Note:**

> I've Just Seen a Face is from the Beatles' HELP! album.


End file.
